


Why will you not survive, when I wish it so?

by LorienofLoth



Series: If I could only bring them home [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Mentors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:20:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7628416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LorienofLoth/pseuds/LorienofLoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chaff doesn't believe in his tributes. But Cane Wilson, angry and a fighter, might make him think otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why will you not survive, when I wish it so?

**Author's Note:**

> Hunger Games sort of violence. Nothing too terrible though, because I know nothing about violence or bodies. Character death. Not beta read, or even proof read for that matter, so apologies. Hope you enjoy.

The tribute interviews are a farce, Chaff knows, and he wouldn’t know how to coach a tribute anyway—he’d been sullen and shifty, giving one-word answers, not looking for sponsors—but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter, doesn’t mean that Wilson, the stupid kid, isn’t fucking everything up out there.

  
He’s glaring at Flickerman and the audience with the deep contempt of a child who has gone hungry more often than not, the anger of a young man who had crawled home after a whipping, and this isn’t the forties. District anger isn’t popular now, with the shiny Career Victors every year, flirtatious and deadly in that way normal district kids can’t manage, but Wilson is acting like these people won’t be his only hope of survival in a few days. Of course, the Capitol never seems to want to help the kids from District Eleven.

  
There is no real applause when Wilson leaves the stage, but at least he was memorable. The girl, Tarr, is indistinguishable from last year’s girl, and the girl from the year before that, even to Chaff.

  
Chaff ushers them both into a lift, not stopping to watch Haymitch’s kids; two no-hopers if he’s ever seen any.

  
‘Well. We’re not going to be counting on any sponsorship, let’s put it that way,’ he says.

  
Tarr looks crushed, but Wilson just spits. ‘Like they’d have sponsored us. When have they ever cared about kids from Eleven?’

  
Chaff imagines clenching his left hand a few times. It’s a trick he worked out a few years ago, when he had to deal with Capitolites crowding him. If he focuses on the tendons and bones and flesh that are no longer there, it distracts him from trying to kill anyone. There was a time when it was the only thing that stopped him from trying to kill anyone but he’s mellowed.

  
‘They care about anyone who puts on a good show.’

  
Their floor is blessedly empty, no Avoxes—creepy fuckers—so Chaff strolls straight to the bar to pour himself a generous measure of whiskey, which he gulps. He ushers Wilson and Tarr off to bed as he pours himself another glass, settling on a sofa. He could work, he knows, could ring Haymitch or Angus or Celia, but instead he turns on the TV and sips his whiskey. Allying with some more no-hopers isn’t going to do anything for the two he’s supposed to mentor.

  
A commentary on the interviews is on and Chaff catches the tail-end of some idiot with green hair and feathers instead of eyebrows twittering before the picture switches to Wilson, looking as solid as one of the mountains Brutus blathers about, saying ‘I don’t care.’  
And from here, from a television screen with a glass of whiskey in hand, it doesn’t look sulky or pathetic or indignant. It looks powerful. It looks brave.

 

Chaff invites Angus for a drink at a known Victors’ bar, The Full Twenty-Four, which is loathsome and sells terrible overpriced drinks and tells him, sotto voce, and still clearly in earshot of the journalist trying to be inconspicuous at the next table that the Reaping has pulled a miracle this year; he has a contender. Tells him he can’t drag his boy, who has so much potential, down with Angus’ Laura or Kenny, who are both thirteen. The girl from One spent an afternoon pretending to throw knives at Kenny and then blowing kisses until he broke down and cried. Chaff hopes they both die in the bloodbath.

  
Chaff makes Wilson study edible plants and trap-setting—he’s going to have to fend for himself in the arena, no sponsors until he makes a few kills at least—and drill in hand-to-hand. He spends his evenings telling him about the weaknesses of various tributes; that the girl from Seven limps slightly, and the boy from Three has never gone hungry.

  
By the time Wilson and Tarr are stepping onto the hovercraft, Chaff is confident that he has a chance.

  
‘Hey Wilson. Stay alive out there.’

 

Waiting for the bloodbath is always tense up in Death Command, mentors locked on their TV screens, headsets on ready to call sponsors as soon as their kids show the requisite brutality. Chaff is between Seeder and Haymitch, alone on the edge, and he watches Wilson stand on his platform, staring at the girl from Two.

  
The cannons fire and Chaff leans forward, opening Wilson’s vitals in one corner of the screen without taking his eyes off it. He leaps off the platform and runs for the jungle. Nothing too elaborate this year in terms of arena, it looks like, and although Wilson isn’t fast, it’s mainly only the no-hopers running away this early.

  
Except the girl from Nine is sprinting to catch up with him, red ponytail flapping, a knife gleaming in her hand. Wilson carries on blindly, until she’s only a foot behind, when he pivots and punches her hard, straight in the throat, before she’s had a chance to pull the knife up. She drops and he grabs the knife and slits her throat before running off, and Chaff lets out a sigh of relief. The bloodbath is still going on, but Wilson has left the area and made his first kill.

  
Next to him, Seeder gasps, and Chaff’s eyes flick to main screen. The boy from Four has flung a spear through Tarr, and she’s lying on the ground, crying and bleeding out.

  
Chaff can’t be too upset. One safe is their best bloodbath result in three years, and Tarr never had any chance, but he knows better than to tell Seeder that. Seeder nurtures all of the children like, well, like it’s their last day on earth.

  
The bloodbath is ending, and all six of the Careers have survived, more’s the pity. Flicking his eyes at the stats panel, Chaff sees they are down to fourteen: both Ones, both Twos, Three girl, both Fours, Five girl, Seven girl, both Eights, Nine boy, Ten boy and Wilson. Wilson’s the only one outside of the pack who has made a kill, and Chaff feels a rush of pride. The Eights, he can see, have stayed together, and there’s a Five-Seven alliance going on, but the others have split up, and Chaff is grateful. The longer it takes for the pack to hunt them down, the more chances for them to die.

 

Both Eights die in the night, caught by the pack, but other than that all is quiet, and Chaff lets Seeder keep watch in the morning while he sleeps. Avoiding burn-out isn’t something they’re used to, but some hopeless optimism says he must try.

  
When he arrives in the afternoon to take over, Death Command is quiet. Half of the tributes are already out, and a couple more probably won’t last the night. Wilson is cooking some sort of snake mutt, and opening another screen, Chaff sees they’re playing footage of him grabbing it and beating it to death on a rock on repeat.

  
His screen-time is cancelled, though, when they flash back to the pack, where Four boy is throwing a spear at the boy from One. He dodges, but it catches in his shoulder and he screams, giving Four boy and One girl time to sprint off. Two boy wrenches the spear out and hands him some cloth to stop the bleeding while Four girl tries not to look nervous. Two girl merely tosses her sword, rolling her eyes at the boys. Chaff tries not to laugh. The pack is broken on only day two.

  
The pack set off hunting, but only find the girl from Three. Chaff has to close the screen and focus on Wilson. He’s not squeamish, but there’s nothing quite as vicious as a thwarted Career.

  
Wilson isn’t doing anything interesting, unfortunately. He’s hidden in some thickets two and a half kilometres from the Five-Seven pair, who are closest. He has water from a stream, one of the many that dot this arena, all leading to the torrential river in the south.

  
Chaff tries ringing sponsors, but he gets nothing. Wilson is too angry; he doesn’t flirt with the cameras or smile for his audience. Chaff wants to ask why the fuck they expect him to, but he knows it’s not worth it. The best he gets is a request to call back when his tribute has made three kills, so Chaff goes back to watching Wilson shimmy up trees and collect fruit to eat.

  
The arena is quiet for a few hours, the tributes managing to miss each other, until the sky darkens. Four boy and One girl are within fifty metres of Ten boy, Kenny, and one console over Angus is swearing, snapping at him to move.

  
Ten boy is asleep though, and he doesn’t wake up until One girl is sat on his lap with a knife to his throat. Four boy is leaning against a tree keeping watch. He’s lost his spear, but he has a machete in one hand. In the low light he looks shockingly young, younger than Wilson, but then he had been younger than Tarr as well. One girl is giggling as she runs her dainty little knife along his throat, then fast as lightning she grabs his head and slices his ear off. Chaff wills Ten boy to do something but he’s just sat there frozen, and Angus slams his fist down on the table.

  
One girl runs her knife along his lips before leaning forward and kissing him, biting his lip. He’s shaking and although they can’t see it on screen, Chaff would bet the poor kid has pissed himself.

  
It’s been an hour by the time Four boy wanders over to tell her to hurry up. She giggles—and if Chaff hears that giggle again he might have to stab someone too—and turns around to pout up at him. He sighs, and Chaff thinks back to them laughing and kissing by the dead bodies of the Eights on the first night, before swiftly grabbing her hair and slitting her throat. He then looks at Kenny’s ruined body, still breathing raggedly and wetly, before shaking his head and breaking his neck. He then turns, catching the cameras and smiling for all the world like a kid who has been to an ice-cream shop, and wanders off into the night.

 

Wilson is woken by the anthem playing at midnight. After staring at the dead projected in the sky, he mutters ‘eight left,’ to himself, and Chaff lets himself smile as Wilson falls back to sleep.

  
The night is quiet for a few more moments until Chaff spots the Five-Seven alliance moving on the screen. They’re drifting towards Wilson, but he isn’t too worried. In the dark they could be ten metres away and they wouldn’t notice each other.

  
The two girls come near to him and are moving away slowly when Wilson rolls over in his sleep and comes down on a branch. It cracks, and the noise is loud in the unnatural quiet of the forest. Both girls freeze. Seven girl is older, maybe seventeen, with brown skin and tightly bound hair. Five girl might be fifteen, a pale skinned brunette with her eyes fixed on Wilson. Chaff wills him to wake up.

  
Slowly, both girls approach him, stepping carefully to avoid making a sound. Five girl picks up a branch, hefts it a few times to be sure of its weight, then steps even closer to Wilson, before swinging it back and slamming it into his head.

  
He’s knocked back and blinks, dazed, blood running down his forehead. She steps closer to him and he shimmies away, so she steps in to swing again. She pulls the branch back and he leaps for her, grabbing her throat and squeezing with all of the force he can bring. Dropping the branch, she claws at his hands, but it’s futile and she looks to Seven girl, who meets her eyes for a second before turning and bolting. Wilson continues squeezing until she is dead.

  
Across the room, Blight whistles. ‘Hey Chaff, Final Eight. Not looking too shabby there.’

  
And Chaff has to clench his imaginary hand, but Blight is right. Wilson—Cane—has made Final Eight. He’s made two kills. All he needs to do is let the others kill each other.

  
On screen, Wilson walks steadily away from Five girl’s dead body into the night.

 

In the morning, Chaff watches Four boy receive a golden trident, beautiful and terrible, from his sponsors, and sit making a net for several hours. Disconcerted, he turns back to Wilson, who is alone, a good distance from any other tributes.

  
In the afternoon he watches the remnants of the pack, now down to three, Four girl having decided to go it alone in the night, chase Four boy. Two girl runs further and faster than the boys, and is ahead of them when Four boy casts his net at her. He walks over to her and drives his trident into her chest, pulling her ribs apart when he pulls it out again. Then he smiles for the camera and turns around to face the boys.

 

In the afternoon, Four boy stumbles across Wilson while following a stream. Wilson—Cane—stumbles to his feet and rushes Four boy, who dances back and drives his trident into Cane’s chest with a vicious strength. Cane collapses, dribbling blood, and Four boy yanks his trident away and twirls it in the air, victorious. Cane manages to draw a hand up to the gaping wound in his chest, and it is swiftly covered in blood. Chaff watches intently for the thirteen minutes it takes for him to die and a hovercraft to take his body away, dragging it out of the mud.

 

Four boy wins the Games.


End file.
